Fabrication and Characterization of Thick Piezoelectric Rubber Sheets

In this study, aligned-type piezoelectric rubbers with a thickness of 5 mm in which piezoelectric particles were aligned in the direction parallel to the thickness by an electric field were fabricated in order to decrease the spring constant. Numerical simulations of ferroelectric particle alignment by an electric field were also carried out. Our method in which moldings were inverted before applying an electric field led to longer particle alignments for piezoelectric rubbers with 10–20 Vol% of particles, which led to an enhancement of their piezoelectric property. The method was modified to control particle position before applying an electric field and the piezoelectric property of piezoelectric rubber with 30 Vol% of particles was enhanced. Furthermore, the particle alignment was affected by particle position before applying an electric field in numerical simulation. Spring constants of thicker piezoelectric rubbers were compared to previously prepared thinner ones.